The French Prime Minister has revived the idea that the French labour market is overly protective of permanent employees. However, international comparisons show that this is not the case, argues Duval Guillaume The functioning of the labour market is not satisfactory because it is not creating enough jobs, it generates significant inequalities between highly protected employees […]
Podemos is Spain’s 3rd political force, and poll gives radical left 26% in total
Jul 16th, 2014 by Tom Gill.An opinion poll puts the radical new formation Podemos (We Can) in third position with 15% of people surveyed indicating backing for the party led by the ponytailed 35-year-old university lecturer Pablo Iglesias. Pollster CIS found that 15% of people supported Podemos, almost double the 8% the fourth-month old party garnered in the European elections, and ahead of the traditional […]
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EU, the Grand Coalition and austerity. Where does Italy’s Renzi stand?
Jul 14th, 2014 by Tom Gill.The choice of Juncker as the next president of the European Commission is in total continuity with the harmful policies of rigor imposed in recent years by the Troika. The Italian prime minister on the one hand seems to beat his fists against the diktats of Berlin, on the other hand make us believe – […]
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Spain’s socialists pick new leader on road to nowhere
Jul 12th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Spain’s opposition Socialists will elect a new leader on Sunday, in a an effort to reverse the party’s dramatic electoral decline and head off the challenge from new and existing parties to its left. After seven years in government, the Socialists were ousted by the right wing Popular Party in a landslide general election in […]
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94 reasons why French trade unions have boycotted Hollande’s job summit
Jul 10th, 2014 by Tom Gill.François Hollande’s jobs summit is becoming a farce. Unemployment in France has risen to a new high of 3.4 million. The socialist President is desperate to be seen to be doing something about it. But Monday yet another union walked out of the two day ‘social summit’, an unprecedented desertion by organised labour for any administration in Paris, let […]
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Germans to get ‘amputated’ minimum wage
Jul 7th, 2014 by Tom Gill.The German parliament this week approved the country’s first minimum wage but unions and critics on the Left are not much impressed. The wage – backed by a vote in the Bundestag on Thursday – will be set at €8.50 (£6.80) per hour, which is higher than the equivalent in the US and UK. Angela Merkel’s […]
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Support the French rail strikers
Jun 17th, 2014 by Tom Gill.The French rail strike – now in its sixth day — is a pain. Nobody likes seeing their train cancelled. High school exams are being disrupted too. But why are the railway workers on strike? They are protesting against the railway reforms of the Government of President Francois Hollande and PM Manuel Valls. The Government claims […]
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French ‘socialists’ go the way of PASOK
Jun 11th, 2014 by Tom Gill.France’s left is in a sorry state. It took a bashing in local elections in March and then European elections in May. The ruling socialists plunged to an all time low of less than 14%. The radical Front de Gauche, comprising the communists and other leftists like Jean Luc Melenchon, polled just 6.3%, down from […]
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French PM ploughs on with austerity but at what price?
Jun 4th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Translated by Tom Gill from the French original by Guillaume Duval Despite the political thunder of the European elections of 25 May, France’s President and Prime Minister Manuel Valls chose the moment to stay the course of their “stability program” presented a month earlier to the National Assembly and approved by it after a fraught debate. […]
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The abdication of the king ends Spain’s imperfect transition
Jun 3rd, 2014 by Tom Gill.Translated from the original by Vicenç Navarro The message that the Spanish establishment – the power structure for the financial, economic, political and media elite – has been promoting 24 hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year and through thirty- six years of democracy, is that, as result of a model Transition, […]
